Wednesday 22nd July

Ola everyone!

Well, we have still been waiting for a project to undertake as a team whilst we're out here. As you would have seen from previous blogs we're not going to be doing the building work which we were initially planning to do.

So for much of the day there hasn’t been a great deal for us to do. Izaias, Chloe, Dave and Rod took a journey back to the village where the house is. There are 2 Christian families in the whole village. One was the house we were going to be reconstructing. We went to the other one first, as we had previously asked a man about buying some land to build on and he was going to let them know. They hadn’t heard anything, but we stayed there for a bit just to talk to them. People out here are very happy to give you their time and stop whatever they’re doing just to welcome you. Many people have invited us into their homes and got all their chairs out for us so we can sit and talk with them. We have definitely attracted a lot of attention! As we walk down the road everyone stops and just stares at us which is quite funny, and we try out our Portuguese.

The others stayed at home and made cards for the kids from the kids games which we did last night. In the evening we organized the addresses of some of the kids that had made a commitment to God and went to visit them, giving them books to read and the cards. The families were really nice and welcoming. It was very surprising actually how receiving they were when 16 people turned up at their house. That would freak people out back home!

We went for pizza when we got back from the visits and we picked up a couple more Portuguese phrases, like how was your day and what did you do.

At the moment we're just taking each day as it comes and finding out what we're doing 10 minutes before we're actually doing it! It's been an amazing experience so far and it has been changing my outlook on life. I've felt a lot more motivated to do more things since I've been here as we have to get up at 6 every morning and do exercises! And also it's been teaching me to put others first a lot more. I've learnt this from being in the Mission Team and also from meeting the Brazilians, who are much more people orientated and willing to give up their time for you.
Thanks for the prayers and haircut photo requests, think they're on the way!
Tchau for now
Joe

P.S. Long awaited photo's are of: Kids games epilogue, Chloe trying on hats at the market, Snake game, Team having lunch at our house, Kids Church Daniel and the lions den, walking in Ararius, goodbye hair, Team on Ruth and Izaias's balcony